FBI's Spyware Program

Note: I worked for the Department of Justice’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) from 2001 to 2005. The documents discussed below mention a memo written by somebody at CCIPS during the time I worked there, but absolutely everything I say below reflects only my personal thoughts and impressions about the documents released to the public today.

Two years ago, Kevin Poulsen broke the news that the FBI had successfully deployed spyware to help catch a student sending death threats to his high school. The FBI calls the tool a CIPAV for “computer and internet protocol address verifier.”

The 152 pages don’t take long to read, because they have been so heavily redacted. The vast majority of the pages have no substantive content at all.

Page one may be the most interesting page. Someone at CCIPS, my old unit, cautions that “While the technique is of indisputable value in certain kinds of cases, we are seeing indications that it is being used needlessly by some agencies, unnecessarily raising difficult legal questions (and a risk of suppression) without any countervailing benefit,”

On page 152, the FBI’s Cryptographic and Electronic Analysis Unit (CEAU) “advised Pittsburgh that they could assist with a wireless hack to obtain a file tree, but not the hard drive content.” This is fascinating on several levels. First, what wireless hack? The spyware techniques described in Poulsen’s reporting are deployed when a target is unlocatable, and the FBI tricks him or her into clicking a link. How does wireless enter the picture? Don’t you need to be physically proximate to your target to hack them wirelessly? Second, why could CEAU “assist . . . to obtain a file tree, but not the hard drive content.” That smells like a legal constraint, not a technical one. Maybe some lawyer was making distinctions based on probable cause?

On page 86, the page summarizing the FBI’s Special Technologies and Applications Office (STAO) response to the FOIA request, STAO responds that they have included an “electronic copy of ‘Magic Quadrant for Information Access Technology'” on cd-rom. Is that referring to this Gartner publication, and if so, what does this have to do with the FOIA request? I’m hoping one of the uber geeks reading this blog can tie FBI spyware to this phrase.

Pages 64-80 contain the affidavit written to justify the use of the CIPAV in the high school threat case. I had seen these back when Kevin first wrote about them, but if you haven’t seen them yet, you should read them.

It definitely appears that the FBI is obtaining search warrants before installing CIPAVs. Although this is probably enough to justify grabbing IP addresses and information packed in a Windows registry, it probably is not enough alone to justify tracing IP addresses in real time. The FBI probably needs a pen register/trap and trace order in addition to the warrant to do that under 18 U.S.C. 3123. Although pen registers are mentioned a few times in these documents–particularly in the affidavit mentioned above–many of the documents simply say “warrant.” This is probably not of great consequence, because if FBI has probable cause to deploy one of these, they can almost certainly justify a pen register order, but why are they being so sloppy?

Two final notes: First, I twittered my present sense impressions while reading the documents, which was an interesting experiment for me, if not for those following me. If you want to follow me, visit my profile.

Second, if you see anything else in the documents that bear scrutiny, please leave them in the comments of this post.

Comments

“On page 86, the page summarizing the FBI’s Special Technologies and Applications Office (STAO) response to the FOIA request, STAO responds that they have included an “electronic copy of ‘Magic Quadrant for Information Access Technology'” on cd-rom. Is that referring to this Gartner publication, and if so, what does this have to do with the FOIA request? I’m hoping one of the uber geeks reading this blog can tie FBI spyware to this phrase.”

The CIPAV software was called “Magic Lantern”. calling it Magic Quadrant would be less suspicious. Sounds like a code word with a legitimate and plausible meaning.

How long before the whole 152 pages without redactions find their way to wikileaks?

My guess: substantially everything in the redacted portions will be known within 6 months. Remember half of the information battle is knowing that the information in fact exists. The next part (publicizing the actual information) is relatively easy.

Yep, at the very least it seems you would need a pen-register order (which requires less oversight than a full wiretap order) to do realtime tracking, but the government has historically taken a very expansive view of the purview of such orders, e.g. arguing that interceptions of email weren’t covered under ECPA or wiretapping statutes because the interception occurred while the data was in RAM somewhere rather than actually in transit on a wire/fiber. Or that a pen-register order allows you to trap not only the numbers dialed but also any number tones entered after supervision has been returned. So you could see how it would be easy to make an argument that a search warrant, as long as it was in force, allowed repeated searches for new information. (And that a pen-register/trap-and-trace order would allow capture of anything sent as part of a connection request, and also deep packet inspection to determine what urls or ip addresses were being sent in the body of packets…)

“Magic Quadrant” is just gartner’s service/trade name for a pretty graph. From Gartner:

“The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner’s analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the “Leaders” quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.” (footer from many pages on mediaproducts.gartner.com)

What it has to do with the FOIA request? Perhaps it is explaining why a particular target system or technology was used. I don’t know.

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